◆ SpookStack

I UP SECRE I this equipment might be dangerous from the security aspect. Allowing a ship- load of equipment manned by a Cuban crew to evade our Coast Guard would probably be a better method. The most secure means of help would be giving the money to Castro, who could then purchase his own arms. A combination of arms and money would probably be best.* 15/ By late fall of 1958, when it became apparent that the Batista regime in Cuba was about to go under, the Agency in conjunction with the Department of State supported a plan to have Batista bow out more or less gracefully and to have the government of the country taken over, not by the Presidential candidate who had been elected in the rigged election, but by a junta pending subsequent free, democratic elections.. When * Not all Agency reporting out of the Cuban~rea was biasedagainst,Castro. One report in the fall of 1958 'indicated that Castro definitely was not a Communist, citing as a reasQn for this: "Ninety-five percent of his fo~lowers are good Catholics. Three Catholic priests have joined Fidel Castro and his forces in the Sierra Maestra, and one has joined Raul C~stro and his troops in the Sierra Cristal. The rebel forces under the Castros, therefore, have four chaplains, while the entire Cuban Army does not have a single chaplain. (Source comment: The United States should not be taken in by President Fulgencio Batista's attempt to label the revolutionary movement as Communist in~ spired, dominated, or influenced.)" 16/ The source for this evaluation of Castro was, ~s one might surmise, a Catholic priest. - 9 - ,